Description
Snowy West Branch Road
I created this painting in 2018. I live on the edge of October Mountain State Forest, the largest state forest in Massachusetts. The dirt road next to our house leads into it, and I walk there all the time.
On one day in winter, it looked positively magical; the trees were dusted with new snow and bowed down over the road, which was covered in snow, too. The light of the day cast a pale, purple hue to the scene. I snapped a photo and went inside near the woodstove to capture the scene in a painting.
It’s 6″ x 8″, painted with oils on masonite.
In 2018, I was inspired to take an intensive plein air workshop with Dan Graziano, a painter I admire. I packed up my art supplies into my 1966 Shasta camper and drove to Castine, Maine. It’s a beautiful little town. I camped at a state forest, but I didn’t spend much time there. I was intensively learning the art of plein air painting. There’s a concentration that comes from attempting to capture a moment in time. Too much fussing, and the lighting will have changed; The same subject is there, but the feeling can be completely different. So plein air is about capturing the essence and not getting caught up in detail.
After the workshop, I came back home and took several weeks to build on what I learned. This is one of a series of paintings I did of scenes around the Berkshires that caught my fancy at that time.
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